Try it: Add Water Beads to the Water Table

One of the best five bucks I’ve spent lately, was on a handful of packages of water beads to play with. We used them to fill up the water table, so the kids can play with them outdoors – meaning that I don’t have to pick them up off of the table.

Every so often, there is bound to be some stragglers on the deck – I have made the kids do a quick clean up of the beads, and request that they try not to squish them, or crush them, so they can continue to play with them, as long as they will last (about a month). You can see one on the left side, easy enough to clean up – you can put the kids in charge (because they made the mess).

As a warning, they’re totally squishable, and when they squish they get pushed into small pieces, and you might find yourself fishing through the water to find those small pieces of squished beads.

You might have to add some water, as they’re not in a covered container, but it’s a fun new take on the water table, giving the kids a new opportunity to play with something that they may have been a bit bored with, in the past.

Before opening the package, you should know the colored powder is very potent and will stain hands and clothes while the beads are expanding. For this reason, we opted for mostly clear beads in the water table, to avoid staining it – and the kids hands while they played. We used one package of turquoise, three packages of clear beads and a package of purple that we ‘grew’ separately overnight in a different container, rinsing them off before we put them in the table, to avoid stained hands.

Where to find floral beads: You can find these beads at the dollar store, in the floral section. They’re tiny little black packages that cost about a dollar each. If you don’t want to shop around at three different dollar stores, you can always check them out on Amazon (where they’re even less expensive)